n.a technique that sets priorities for appraising and processing materials based on the relative importance of the activities of an organizationGreene 2009, 6Functional analysis . . . argues that records be appraised only after the functions of an institution are defined and understood. Record appraisal then becomes a matter of identifying or creating records which best document the institution’s functions. Because it is institutionally based, functional analysis implicitly shuns any prioritization among similar institutions, and suggests that there is a universal and objective set of records which comprise “adequate” documentation of each and every example of a particular type of institution.Galloway 2015, 588Readers of The American Archivist will remember that he [Marcus C. Robyns] and Jason Woolman described this process in a 2011 article that outlines both the use of functional analysis as an appraisal method in a small archives and a suggestion of its use for arrangement as well.
